192 PROFESSOR EDWARD HULL, M.A., LL.D., P.R.S., ON 



indeed that this uprise has occurred in very recent periods. But 

 the other uprisings, mentioned in the former part of the paper, 

 belongs to quite a different era. The great uprise represented by 

 shelves at a height of 1,200 feet to 1,300 feet above the level of 

 the sea was at a long preceding period, and has no connection 

 whatever with the uprise more especially spoken of in this paper. 

 But we must not think, late though this period has been, that this 

 was the last oscillation of the land in these islands. Professor Hull 

 does not speak of it as the last oscillation or movement of the land 

 but as the last uprise of the land. Now there has l3een a fall of 

 the land since that period, evidently ; because we have submerged 

 or sunken forests round our coasts and on the coast of Cheshire, at 

 low water, you may see the stumps of trees. This shows the 

 depression that has taken place since that uprise, and that these 

 elevations and depressions have taken place in all geological epochs 

 of the world's history down, one may say, to the present time ; and 

 we have evidence that they are going on even at the present day, 

 for the movement of the land in the Scandinavian Peninsula, in 

 the last century, has been measured to amount to about 3 feet in 

 100 years, and that is going on as we know. 



Then we have distinct evidence that in the last century the 

 whole of the western coast of South America rose very considerably 

 and at one time it rose 9 feet in 24 hours, which is a permanent 

 uprise; but there has been a very considerable uprise along the 

 whole of the west coast of South America in recent times. These 

 are facts in geology which show us very clearly that the present 

 state of things has been due to the various movements of the 

 terrestrial sphere through a vast number of ages. 



This paper has brought before us a controversy very recently 

 raised, viz., as to whether the elevation of the relative levels 

 between land and sea is due to the movements of the land, or of the 

 sea. It has been accepted as a commonplace in geological teaching 

 that the level of the sea is a permanent level. 



The Secretary. — Since Ly ell's time. 



Professor LoBLEY. — Yes; that the water, being mobile, any 

 change of level in one place will be distributed over the whole of 

 the sea of the globe ; and seeing that the seas occupy three times the 

 amount of the surface of the globe that the land does, the small 

 alteration of level would be quickly distributed and lost ; so we may 



